According to a previous study, there is a direct relationship between antibiotic use and growth of resistance (Ventola, 2015). There are approximately 325,000,000 people in the United States today, and in 2010, each person, on average, received 22 doses of antibiotic (U.S. and World Population Clock, 2016). People are receiving more than sufficient amounts of medication, making it easier for microbes to adapt. The most common medical issues treated by antibiotics are: respiratory-revolved, upper respiratory tract infections, urinary tract infections, and ear infections; in many cases, these are frequently caused by viruses rather than bacteria and are not even treatable by antibiotics. There were 23,000,000 prescriptions overall for these four complications (Antibiotic Resistance Research and Surveillance, 2014). Also, large amounts of antibiotics are introduced into the environment as other sources besides medication. For example, fruit trees are exposed to large amounts of tetracycline and streptomycin, two relatively common antibiotics, as pesticides in the United States (Ventola, 2015). The exaggerated use of antibiotics for unnecessary situations has put the human population in an uncomfortable …show more content…
Eighty percent of antibiotics sold in the United States today contribute to the health and growth of livestock (Ventola, 2015). Most of these antibiotics are disposed of through excretion, allowing them to enter directly into the environment. Enhancing food animals to their best quality has been a prominent benefit of antimicrobial compound use (Mathew, 2007). This fact alone has made it extremely difficult for food producers to stray away from this old